UFC 333: Volkanovski knocks out Evloev to retain featherweight title

Alexander Volkanovski secures a technical knockout in the closing seconds of round two at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski has retained his featherweight title after making short work of Russia’s Movsar Evloev in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 333 main event in Abu Dhabi.

Volkanovski secured a technical knockout (TKO) with a right hand, followed by a ground-and-pound move in the closing seconds of the second round of their scheduled five-round fight on Saturday.

The official time was 4:54, as the fight was called off with six seconds left to the jubilation of the Etihad Arena crowd in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

It was Evloev’s first professional loss, and he remained classy in defeat.

“Like I said, Alex is a great champion, and it was an honour to share the cage with him,” Evloev said after the loss.

Meanwhile, Volkanovski said he wants to keep stacking wins for as long as he can.

“I’m choosing to do [fight]; I don’t have to. I said if I didn’t take too much damage, we will probably keep going. So maybe we keep going,” Volkanovski said.

In the co-main event, Petr Yan won his three-fight series against Merab Dvalishvili in a Russia vs Georgia showdown as he swept the scorecards 48-47, 48-47, 48-47, using a gruelling pace and a mix of wrestling and dirty boxing while keeping Dvalishvili at a distance to defend his UFC bantamweight title.

Yan beat Dvalishvili last December to regain the title for the second time, having previously won it in July 2020 against Jose Aldo at UFC 251.

The finishes kept coming, but this time in the flyweight division. England’s Lone’er Kavanagh secured a TKO stoppage against Uzbekistan’s Ramazan Temirov with an uppercut, followed by strikes, at 4:28 of Round 1.

At heavyweight, Russia’s Alexander Volkov won a unanimous decision over Rizvan Kuniev, utilising dominant wrestling and top control to earn his third straight win. Volkov called for a title shot at Thursday’s presser, seemingly stumping UFC CEO Dana White when Volkov addressed him.

Kuniev had his two-fight winning streak snapped.

In the opening fight on the main card, Aaron Pico needed just over a minute to TKO Losene Keita of Guinea in their featherweight fight. Pico has won back-to-back fights, while Keita has split his last four.